The Value of Walking

 On a sweltering late summer day, I trod carefully along the banks of a heavily impacted New England river. This was a river I'd fished before, but a stretch I was unfamiliar with. I was on the hunt for carp. In rivers, I've often found that carp are not sparsely and evenly distributed. There'll be extremely long stretches with none at all, the short stretches occupied by substantial schools. I'd say I'm slowly piecing together together the factors that make a stretch of river appealing to carp, or at least appropriate for spotting them, but after a number of years of experience I've come to learn that at least on some rivers, the carp aren't necessarily in the same stretches year to year. 

Illustrative of this is a different, narrower, impacted New England river, one I fish and guide on regularly. There's a series of separated deep pools, each with fish. Year to year thought the abundance changes in each pool, and it is clear that though there are at points hundreds of yards of extremely shallow water in between the fish move pool to pool. Last year, a small orange koi started his year in what I call Pool 1. A few months later he dropped down into Pool 2. This year Pool 2 is the only place I've seen him. Additionally, Pool 1 and Pool 2 both have more fish showing than they did last year, whereas Pool 3, the longtime over-performer, seems to have about half as many fish.

Perhaps even more illustrative is a medium sized tributary stream. Last year it was full of carp. I found schools in four different sections. Some were huge. In fact, a client of mine hooked and subsequently broke off a fish that was easily 30 pounds. This season, there simply weren't carp in that stream. They'd all apparently dropped back for the winter and decided not to return. 

So that leaves some mystery in rivers like the one I was walking. Even if I found good looking water, there may not be fish. Indeed I carefully observed multiple pools- even going so far as climbing trees and watching for extended time periods from perfect vantage points -that clearly had no carp. They had the features of pools I'd found carp in on other rivers, so I can't rule them out for future seasons. the fish just aren't there now. Not to be deterred, I kept covering ground. I knew I'd find them eventually. I moved slowly and methodically, stop[ping and watching. I wasn't pausing and making casts, unless I saw a good sized smallmouth or a pod of rising fallfish, I was just looking. 

Eventually I did find what I was looking for, a substantial school of carp in a short stretch of river that really didn't look extremely special. It featured a couple deadfalls, mud bottom, slow and even current, and a steep far bank shaded by trees. It certainly looked good, but so had many other areas I'd already walked by. Perhaps it was the sum total of those aspects and perhaps a couple I didn't list that made this the carp's preferred stretch. Or maybe next year they will be somewhere else in the river. Regardless, they were there now. These fish were sizable for the area, most looking to be in the high teens in weight. All were mirrors. Their behavior didn't lend itself to feeding, however. They moved about in groups of three to six, moving much too quickly. I'd need to return at a more appropriate feeding time.

A week or so later, I got another opportunity to visit the river under better conditions. I carefully made my way to the spot, keeping my eyes out for fish that may have moved into any of the spots in the mile and a half between where I parked and where I'd found the carp on the previous trip. I didn't locate any new fish, but with near-ideal conditions, the fish at "the spot" seemed much more numerous and were clearly in a feeding mode. I tied on one of my black body squirmy hybrids and crept into position. The  first fish I presented to took. I had my work cut out for me on six pound but eventually got the fish to hand. 

I'd made one cast and caught one fish. Such events underscore the value of walking. If you sight fish, whether its to rising trout, carp, striped bass, bonefish, or whatever else it may be, there is immense benefit in simply covering ground slowly and methodically. Not casting, just observing. It allows you to see the lay of the land and grow your understanding of the location as well as the structures within it that the fish like or don't like. It also highlights the value of getting distance under your feet. This school of carp was residing at least a mile from anywhere I could park.I learned long ago that the way to fish fish was to search. I was relentless, and still am. Covering ground, covering water... there is huge value in walking. 

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